Op-Ed

When Green Party of Philadelphia leaders were asked at a meeting if they thought Dr. Jill Stein actually had a chance at the presidency, the question was met with laughter. There was no glimmer of hope that she could win, because Green Party members know the truth: our country is tyrannized by a two-party system and the little man is lost in the process.

If you were to walk into a stranger’s backyard for the first time and proclaim that you’ve discovered it, it’s unlikely you’d be celebrated for it for over 500 years. In fact, you’d likely be arrested for trespassing. Consider this during this year’s celebration of Christopher Columbus Day.

Fifty years ago from Saturday, Joe Paterno coached his first Penn State football game. Fifty years ago, before a statue was raised in his honor and an ice cream flavor was named for him. Before Paterno’s 30-year assistant Jerry Sandusky raped 10 young boys, some in the University’s own athletic complex bathrooms. Before Paterno was an enabler of child sexual abuse, allegedly ignoring a complaint from a young boy in 1971 who was raped by Sandusky.

The landscape of the city of Philadelphia has begun to transform as a result of the 2016 Presidential election. Philadelphia prepares to host the Democratic National Convention in July. Even our former mayor, Michael Nutter, has weighed in on the national election, suggesting that he wanted to ban Republican frontrunner Donald Trump from Philadelphia. This, in addition to a mural painted in the first weeks of March on a building at 22nd and Catharine streets, depicting Bernie Sanders with the accompanying slogan “Philly the Bern” highlights the hyper attention that the 2016 election demands.

When my dad asked me how I met my boyfriend, I made up an elaborate ruse about how we were introduced via friends of friends. When my boyfriend’s mom asked him how we met, he made up a story about us meeting at a concert. However, the truth is even more romantic: we matched on Tinder about a year and a half ago.

Given that we’re from different cities and a few years apart in age, it’s not uncommon for people to wonder how we got together. I usually don’t lie about it, but questioning from adults usually leads to me improvising an unconvincingly vague anecdote to avoid their confusion and judgment. When I give the real story to people my age, I’m sometimes met with surprise but increasingly they’ll offer their own anecdote about knowing someone who met their significant other on Tinder.

To be honest, I didn’t have any expectations when I downloaded the app. It was a fun way to pass the time and I got some laughs out of swiping through profiles with my friends. Cruel, I know. My boyfriend, on the other hand, later admitted that for him the app was a contest among his friends to see who could get the most matches with hot girls.

But as I started to chat with some of these matches I found that very few people would directly ask to “hook up,” or even meet up at all for that matter. It seemed that everyone was just on the app, wandering aimlessly, looking to chat with a few cool people to break up the monotony of everyday work or school life. Not to mention that Tinder can act as a pretty huge ego-booster.